“No,” I confirmed for them- again. “But I think that’s part of his game. If he were pushy or overly aggressive, I could point to that and say, ‘See? You’re a monster.’ But his whole thing is proving to me that he’s not a monster, that he’s not a bad guy.”
The boys snorted almost simultaneously. Vaughan leaned back and rubbed his palms on his kneecaps and Hendrix pulled me close so he could press a kiss to my temple.
“What do you think his game plan is, Reagan?” Vaughan asked after a few moments of thoughtful silence.
“I think he wants me as his possession. For whatever reason, he’s latched on to me with this idea that I belong to him. He’s playing it smart, really smart actually. He does a great job with the non-threatening gentleness, he’s patient until I almost forget about him. And then he’s there for me, you know?”
“No.” Hendrix was that unmoving rock again. “No, I don’t know what you mean by, ‘here’s there
for you.’”
“He waits for me to need something, or someone. And then he finds a way to make sure I need
him.” I paused to gather my thoughts but rushed forward when I noticed the reaction my words were getting. “Not that I let him be there for me. I’m just saying, that’s what he tries to do.”
And Ok, sometime succeeds.
But they didn’t need to hear that last part.
Their murderous expressions softened into only extreme rage and hatred. So, that was a step up.
“He thinks he’s going to convince you to go willingly,” Vaughan decided. “He thinks he can make you want him.”
“He’s out of his mind,” I whispered. And then tried to believe it. He was. In some ways at least. But then he was also redeemable and vulnerable in other ways. Was his dad the catalyst to his fall? Or did he just understand how to use those endearingly humane pieces of him to manipulate and control and get his way?
I would never trust him.
I
could
never trust him- that would be the end of me. If I let Kane in in any way, he would take over completely. My small window to him would become his complete seizure of all control. That much I knew.
“But you’re right about him using you guys to get to me. I’m pretty confident that’s his plan.” I put my hand on Hendrix’s thigh and squeezed it. Or tried to squeeze it. His lean, solid muscle didn’t exactly squish easily.
“I thought as much,” Vaughan grunted. “What about Tyler and Miller? Did he say anything about them?”
“I think they’re safe. He knows what Matthias is like, he doesn’t want to see them punished for running away. He doesn’t think Matthias will kill them, but even Kane can’t be sure. He said he wouldn’t say anything about them being here.” I found that a little hard to believe, but Kane was hard to read in this circumstance. There were times he really seemed to care about his brother and sister.
And there were times when he only cared about himself.
And that’s when I decided not to ask about Tyler and Miller. It was better that I didn’t know where they were or what they were going to do while Matthias was here. That way when it came up- and I was sure that it would- I could be honest and convincing.
“Do you believe him?” Hendrix asked.
“Sure, until I don’t bend to his will. Then I’m sure he’ll give me a new incentive to be obedient.” I stood up abruptly, feeling antsy an responsible for a tragedy that hadn’t even happened yet.
I walked forward and turned my back on Hendrix and Vaughan, then I turned around and looked at their sullen expressions, then I paced to the side. I already felt the control slipping from my grasp and I hated it. I
hated
that the Allen’s were a part of our lives, that they intruded on this put-together happiness I had to fight to keep. They would take it all away from me if they could- the Parkers, Haley, Tyler and Miller, and I hated Matthias and Kane most of all for that.
“Hey,” Hendrix called out in a voice that demanded I turn around and give him my attention. “He only wins if you let him. You know that, right?”
“And if I lose everyone I love trying not to let him win?” I asked in a pleading tone.
Hendrix shrugged and shared a look with Vaughan, “Don’t you know us better by now? We don’t let anything come between us, Reagan. Not even psychotic assholes that don’t understand the meaning of the word ‘no.’”
Instead of relaxing, a tremor shook me at my core. I did know that about the Parkers. I admired that about the Parkers. But that meant this could only end one way and that was in a fight.
And I knew it would end in a fight because I wasn’t selfless enough to sacrifice myself. Survival had taught me to be selfish, greedy for life. There were other things I would put before myself, but in the end they all revolved around me. Haley, because she was my sister by now and I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I wouldn’t survive the break between us, therefore I needed
her
for
my
survival. The Parkers, even Tyler and Miller, because I needed family, I needed companionship and conversation. They were good for me because they kept me human. But they also kept me safe. Yes, I loved all of these people beyond myself, but my interests were all self-centered. Hendrix, because I’d fallen for him so hard I couldn’t separate us now. There was no me or him. There was us. And what we could do together. And I wouldn’t give any of them up by leaving them. If I left them, then there would be nothing
left of me
. If I surrendered to Kane, what was even the point of the rest of this horrible existence? I needed them.
I planned on keeping them, no matter the cost.
I’d already given up more than I ever thought I could once before. I’d grieved my parents. I’d grieved the loss of civilized society and the world as I knew it. I’d grieved the decline of humanity and goodness and decency. There wasn’t much left for me to want out of life.
So, I would fight tooth and nail, until I had nothing left to fight with, until I couldn’t fight anymore to keep those worthy, pure, beautiful and lovely things in my life. I would not give them up to save myself.
This was not a love story that ended in tragedy.
This was a tragedy that ended in a love story.
I held Hendrix’s steady gaze and nodded. “I won’t leave you for him. As long as you’re prepared to fight him on this, or them, or The Colony or whomever comes after us… I will not leave you.”
Out of my peripheral I watched Vaughan sink into his rocking chair. He blew out a relieved breath and ran a rough hand through his hair. But my eyes stayed firmly on Hendrix and his proud, adoring gaze.
“We’re going to go clean up,” he told Vaughan while standing to meet me.
“Be back in time to deal with all this,” Vaughan commanded. “You have two hours at the most.”
Hendrix didn’t respond, just walked straight to me and kissed me sweetly on the lips without touching any other part of my body with his.
“I’m serious, Hendrix,” Vaughan said louder. “Two hours or I’m coming to find you.”
“Sure,” he threw over his shoulder. “Come find us.” And then he was guiding me toward the hallway.
“Two hours is plenty of time to get cleaned up and meet back here.” I wasn’t sure if I was flirting with him or just trying to get a reaction out of him but suddenly a nervous chill racked my body.
“If that’s what we were doing, you would be right,” Hendrix agreed.
I cleared my throat and dug deep for courage, “Um, what are we doing?”
I could hear the seductive smile in his voice even in the almost pitch-dark hallway, “We’re going to find that locked door and dark place now. We have promises to keep to each other.”
Chapter Four
Nervous insecurity warred with excited anticipation in my body and I was ninety-nine percent sure I was going to stroke-out before we even got to our destination.
First things first, I hadn’t really been alone with Hendrix since our first kiss and that was still outside in the open where any Feeder could have stumbled upon us or Page could have walked in on our very amorous admission of feelings. If Hendrix could pull it off, we were going someplace alone, with a door that locked. I mean, was that even possible? Did those places even exist anymore?
God, I hoped so.
And also kind of hoped they didn’t.
Because now was the perfect time for me to start feeling like a girl with insecurities and body issues and doubt. Awesome.
I needed a little preparation before I went into this kind of thing. There were rituals to be done, steps that needed to be taken so that when- and if- my clothes came off Hendrix could identify me as a woman!
Oh, no! When was the last time I shaved my pits? It had been like…. Way. Too. Long.
I winced thinking about the other places of my body that needed trimming. Holy hell, Hendrix was going to get eaten by my crotch that had evolved into a man-eating gorilla sometime over the last two years!
Why hadn’t I invested in laser hair removal before I graduated high school?
I hadn’t even been able to give my girly bits a good, sufficient scrubbing since we met up with the Parkers since we’d all been enjoying communal bathing with most of our clothes still on. It wasn’t like I could just turn around and loofa!
Oh my gosh, this was so the end of everything I had built with Hendrix.
Sex was clearly out of the question.
And not just because there might possibly be mold growing on my va-jay-jay… No, that was only a small piece of the puzzle.
One I would seriously fix immediately. Next bath down by the river, I was going to make a serious statement about feminine hygiene. I just hoped I didn’t traumatize anyone for life.
I mean, Zombies were one thing. Asking almost complete strangers and one innocent little Page to witness an attack on my vaginasaurous was an entirely other thing to ask of humanity.
No, sex was still out of the question because everything with Hendrix was still new. Even though we’d known each other for over three months and even though my feelings for him were concrete and potentially eternal, why didn’t I get to hold on to the one thing I had left to give to a man? It wasn’t that I didn’t think it would inevitably be Hendrix. I did think that. I believed that with everything inside of me.
But there were still things that deserved to be special. Even in the Zombie Apocalypse, there were still parts of my life that could be given a higher standard.
This was my first time. And once I gave it away, it could not be ungiven. There wasn’t this moral issue I had with it, nothing like that. But it was just that my virginity was mine- maybe the only thing I had left that nobody had any part in… uh, yet. And I wanted it to be special. I wanted it to stay with me when the world was bleak and crumbling around me. I wanted it to fill me with hope and joy and intimate moments that I would hold against my heart and not even share with Haley. I wanted it to remind me there was more to life than killing and nearly dying. I wanted it to represent this love I shared with Hendrix, to be the life inside this world of decay.
Was that putting a whole lot of expectation on losing my v-card- an experience that would probably involve pain and maybe not the most satisfying experience according to legend? Yes, absolutely. But that was my choice, my decision to hold this special. And it was one of the only things I had left.
Kane and Hendrix had been right about confessing those three little words. I needed to say “I love you” to Hendrix. And I needed to hear that from him.
But sex was different. Hopefully loving each other went beyond the physical need to be together. I could die a virgin and be Ok with that. Or worse, Hendrix could die and leave me a virgin and I would still be able to survive. Obviously, it would suck, but my body’s physical needs wouldn’t outweigh the cry of my heart. Those words were infinitely more important. It was because of those words I could even entertain the idea of sex anyway.
I loved Hendrix, but a two hour time frame in a cold, cement-floored storage room felt like throwing something important away for convenience’s sake.
Well, I felt like that until he pulled up the unit door and we walked into the most thoughtful, planned-out moment of my life.
I watched in awe as Hendrix moved around the narrow space lighting candles in all four corners of the room and on a milk crate in the center. Once the candles were lit, Hendrix closed the sliding garage-style door with a noisy thud and let me take in the room.
We were truly alone.
The candlelight flickered to life and cast shadows on a micro-suede love seat in the back of the long space, wedged between two file cabinets; an oak buffet stood along one wall and a very furry, very plush looking rug covered the floor in the middle of the room. There was a bottle of wine, two metal camping cups and a bowl of something on the buffet. I had to assume the bowl held candy.
My stomach flip-flopped.
And then flip-flopped again when I saw all the flowers.
On every wall were painted flowers in black and gray- the only paint colors I would have bet Hendrix had to work with. They were beautiful on the white cement walls, breath-taking and tear-inducing. The skill was mediocre at best and the paint had run in places, dripping long streaks of paint to the floor. But they were flowers.
For me.
The most beautiful flowers I’d ever seen.
On the buffet table I could see another flower now- this one real but long dead and dried, pressed flat and thin. I walked over to it, trying to keep my emotions in check. I reached out to touch the delicate crimson petals and whimpered pathetically, losing all hope of being anything but an emotion wreck today.
“I kept it,” Hendrix admitted in a rough, gravelly voice that wrapped around me like decadent silk.
It was one of the roses we found behind the Payless Shoe Store when we first got to Oklahoma. Hendrix and I had found a whole garden of them behind the store and we’d taken some inside to hand out to the girls, but I hadn’t thought to keep mine. It wasn’t necessary for my survival, it wouldn’t save my life. The end of the world had turned me cynical and painfully practical.